11,373 research outputs found
A Brief History of Curvature
The trace of the stress-energy tensor of the cosmological fluid, proportional
to the Ricci scalar curvature in general relativity, is determined on cosmic
scales for times ranging from the inflationary epoch to the present day in the
expanding Universe. The post-inflationary epoch and the thermal history of the
relativistic fluid, in particular the QCD transition from asymptotic freedom to
confinement and the electroweak phase transition, leave significant imprints on
the scalar curvature. These imprints can be of either sign and are orders of
magnitude larger than the values that would be obtained by naively
extrapolating the pressureless matter of the present epoch back into the
radiation-dominated epoch.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figure
Towards a future singularity?
We discuss whether the future extrapolation of the present cosmological state
may lead to a singularity even in case of "conventional" (negative) pressure of
the dark energy field, namely . The discussion is based on an
often neglected aspect of scalar-tensor models of gravity: the fact that
different test particles may follow the geodesics of different metric frames,
and the need for a frame-independent regularization of curvature singularities.Comment: 8 pages. Essay written for the "2004 Awards for Essays on
Gravitation" (Gravity Research Foundation, Wellesley Hills, MA, USA), and
selected for "Honorable Mention
Formation of Black Holes from Collapsed Cosmic String Loops
The fraction of cosmic string loops which collapse to form black holes is
estimated using a set of realistic loops generated by loop fragmentation. The
smallest radius sphere into which each cosmic string loop may fit is obtained
by monitoring the loop through one period of oscillation. For a loop with
invariant length which contracts to within a sphere of radius , the
minimum mass-per-unit length necessary for the cosmic string
loop to form a black hole according to the hoop conjecture is . Analyzing loops, we obtain the empirical estimate for the fraction of cosmic string
loops which collapse to form black holes as a function of the mass-per-unit
length in the range . We
use this power law to extrapolate to , obtaining the
fraction of physically interesting cosmic string loops which
collapse to form black holes within one oscillation period of formation.
Comparing this fraction with the observational bounds on a population of
evaporating black holes, we obtain the limit on the cosmic string mass-per-unit-length. This limit is consistent
with all other observational bounds.Comment: uuencoded, compressed postscript; 20 pages including 7 figure
Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation Anisotropy Induced by Cosmic Strings
We report on a current investigation of the anisotropy pattern induced by
cosmic strings on the cosmic microwave background radiation (MBR). We have
numerically evolved a network of cosmic strings from a redshift of to
the present and calculated the anisotropies which they induce. Based on a
limited number of realizations, we have compared the results of our simulations
with the observations of the COBE-DMR experiment. We have obtained a
preliminary estimate of the string mass-per-unit-length in the cosmic
string scenario.Comment: 8 pages of TeX - [Color] Postscript available by anonymous ftp at
ftp://fnas08.fnal.gov:/pub/Publications/Conf-94-197-A, FERMILAB-Conf-94/197-
Comments on scalar-tensor representation of nonlocally corrected gravity
The scalar-tensor representation of nonlocally corrected gravity is
considered. Some special solutions of the vacuum background equations were
obtained that indicate to the nonequivalence of the initial theory and its
scalar-tensor representation.Comment: 6 pages, refs adde
Anisotropy of the Cosmic Neutrino Background
The cosmic neutrino background (CNB) consists of low-energy relic neutrinos
which decoupled from the cosmological fluid at a redshift z ~ 10^{10}. Despite
being the second-most abundant particles in the universe, direct observation
remains a distant challenge. Based on the measured neutrino mass differences,
one species of neutrinos may still be relativistic with a thermal distribution
characterized by the temperature T ~ 1.9K. We show that the temperature
distribution on the sky is anisotropic, much like the photon background,
experiencing Sachs-Wolfe and integrated Sachs-Wolfe effects.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures / updated references, discussion of earlier wor
Pair Production of Topological anti de Sitter Black Holes
The pair creation of black holes with event horizons of non-trivial topology
is described. The spacetimes are all limiting cases of the cosmological
metric. They are generalizations of the dimensional black hole and have
asymptotically anti de Sitter behaviour. Domain walls instantons can mediate
their pair creation for a wide range of mass and charge.Comment: 4 pages, uses late
Constraints on Oscillating Quintom from Supernova, Microwave Background and Galaxy Clustering
We consider in this paper a simple oscillating Quintom model of dark energy
which has two free parameters and an equation of state oscillating and crossing
-1. For low redshifts the equation of state of this model resembles itself
similar to the linearly parameterized dark energy, however differ substantially
at large redshifts. We fit our model to the observational data separately from
the new high redshift supernova observations from the HST/GOODS program and
previous supernova, CMB and galaxy clustering. Our results show that because of
the oscillating feature of our model the constraints from observations at large
redshifts such as CMB become less stringent.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures Revtex
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